Brazil: biofuels threaten food production only in U.S.

NEW YORK, April 14 (Reuters) - Brazil's finance minister rejected on Monday the idea that the production of biofuels is driving higher the price of food globally, saying that this is a problem restricted to the United States.

"It endangers (food production) here in the United States, but not in Brazil, not in African countries, not in Latin American countries, which have enough land to produce both" food and biofuels, Guido Mantega told journalists in New York.

Environmentalists and some government officials of developed countries have partially blamed a recent spike in food prices on the growing production of biofuels, made from corn in the U.S. and from sugar cane in Brazil.

The minister criticized U.S. government subsidies to the production of biofuels from corn, saying the United States should import more ethanol from Brazil instead.

Mantega defended the strategy of several emerging market countries like Brazil which stimulate the production of food and biofuels simultaneously.

"Let's not forget that a food crisis can be as serious as an energy crisis," he said on the sidelines of a seminar organized by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce. (Reporting by Walter Brandimarte;)